This month Rowman & Littlefield published a book by William Patrick Martin titled A Lifetime of Fiction: The 500 Most Recommended Reads for Ages 2 to 102, and Updike’s Rabbit series is Number 1 of 100 books listed in the Adults (Ages 18+) section. In recommending Updike to readers, Martin offers more of a description than a reason for reading:

“Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit Is Rich; and Rabbit at Rest. These novels follow the life of one-time high-school basketball star Harry ‘Rabbit’ Angstrom over several decades, from young adulthood, through paunchy middle age, to his retirement and death. In 2001, Updike wrote a novella sequel, Rabbit Remembered, which continues with some of the main characters.”

Here’s the Amazon.com link to the book.

In case you’re curious, the Number 1 book for Preschoolers (Ages 2-5) is The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle; Number 1 for Early Readers (Ages 4-8) is Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans; for Middle Readers (Ages 9-12) it’s the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling; and for Young Adults (Ages 13-17) it’s The Giver, by Lois Lowry.

The dust jacket flap copy tells us that the book represents “a composite of the most noteworthy book award lists, best book publications, and recommended reading lists from leading libraries, schools, and parenting organizations across the country.” Martin, who wrote his dissertation on “the epic University of Chicago ‘great books debate’ of the 1930s and 1940s, has been a professor of education at Temple University and Monmouth University.

Today, April 24, 2014, Newsday published an excerpt from Adam Begley’s biography of Updike which deals with Updike’s stint as Talk of the Town reporter for The New Yorker magazine. Here’s the link:

Excerpt from ‘Updike’

Amazon.com usually offers a “look inside” so you can see the Table of Contents of a book or read an excerpt, but they haven’t done that yet for Adam Begley’s forthcoming (April 8) biography of John Updike. So we thought we’d provide that service. A review will come later, but for now, here’s a peek inside Updike, which will be published by HarperCollins:

Table of Contents
Introduction
I. A Tour of Berks County
II. The Harvard Years
III. The Talk of the Town
IV. Welcome to Tarbox
V. The Two Iseults
VI. Couples
VII. Updike Abroad
VIII. Tarbox Redux
IX. Marrying Martha
X. Haven Hill
XI. The Lonely Fort
XII. Endpoint
Notes
Credits
Acknowledgments
Index

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In case you haven’t happened upon it yet, above is the cover art that HarperCollins Publishers posted on their website, along with additional information on the upcoming biography by Adam Begley. The publication date is April 8, 2014, and the HarperCollins website provides a detailed description:

Updike is Adam Begley’s masterful, much-anticipated biography of one of the most celebrated figures in American literature: Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Updike—a candid, intimate, and richly detailed look at his life and work.

In this magisterial biography, Adam Begley offers an illuminating portrait of John Updike, the acclaimed novelist, poet, short-story writer, and critic who saw himself as a literary spy in small-town and suburban America, who dedicated himself to the task of transcribing “middleness with all its grits, bumps and anonymities.”

Updike explores the stages of the writer’s pilgrim’s progress: his beloved home turf of Berks County, Pennsylvania; his escape to Harvard; his brief, busy working life as the golden boy at The New Yorker; his family years in suburban Ipswich, Massachusetts; his extensive travel abroad; and his retreat to another Massachusetts town, Beverly Farms, where he remained until his death in 2009. Drawing from in-depth research as well as interviews with the writer’s colleagues, friends, and family, Begley explores how Updike’s fiction was shaped by his tumultuous personal life—including his enduring religious faith, his two marriages, and his first-hand experience of the “adulterous society” he was credited with exposing in the bestselling Couples.

With a sharp critical sensibility that lends depth and originality to his analysis, Begley probes Updike’s best-loved works—from Pigeon Feathers to The Witches of Eastwick to the Rabbit tetralogy—and reveals a surprising and deeply complex character fraught with contradictions: a kind man with a vicious wit, a gregarious charmer who was ruthlessly competitive, a private person compelled to spill his secrets on the printed page. Updike offers an admiring yet balanced look at this national treasure, a master whose writing continues to resonate like no one else’s.

The 560-page biography has a suggested retail price of $29.99.

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